Booking the Band? You May Have Just Hired an Employee
Payday Super has turned a long-ignored superannuation trap into an immediate one — and Christmas function season is exactly when it bites.
It’s September, which means you’re locking in the venue, the band and the AV crew for the Christmas function. Here’s the part nobody mentions: you may owe superannuation on all three.
Section 12(8) of the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 deems a person paid to perform or present music, entertainment, sport, a display or a promotional activity to be your employee for super purposes. It doesn’t matter that they hold an ABN, that they invoiced you, that it was a one-off, or that the agreement calls them an independent contractor. If you paid an individual to perform, the super is yours to pay.
It reaches further than the act on stage. The provision also captures people paid to provide services in connection with the performance — the sound technician, the lighting operator, the AV contractor at your conference. The same wording picks up promotional models and brand ambassadors working a trade stand.
Two developments have turned this from theoretical to urgent
First, the $450 monthly earnings threshold was abolished in 2022. A single $400 booking now carries an obligation.
Second, Payday Super commenced on 1 July 2026. Superannuation is no longer a quarterly clean-up — it attaches to each payment, on a days-based deadline. Settling with the duo in cash on the night and sorting it out later is no longer viable.
Getting it wrong is expensive
Getting it wrong is still expensive — the cost has just moved. Under Payday Super, the SGC itself (the shortfall, notional earnings, administrative uplift and choice loading) is tax deductible once you pay it. What isn’t deductible is the general interest charge that accrues while it sits unpaid, and the late payment penalty that follows if you ignore a Notice to Pay. And because the ATO now assesses the SGC itself rather than waiting for you to lodge, a venue that has run the same Friday night booking for years without ever structuring it properly can expect that exposure to surface on its own.
There is a legitimate answer. Where the booking is genuinely with the performer’s company or trust rather than with the individual, the deeming provision generally doesn’t apply — but the contract, the invoice and the payment records must all tell the same story.
If you’re booking performers, sound or lighting contractors, or promotional staff for your Christmas function this year, talk to us now about how those bookings should be structured and paid — before the invoices land, not after. It’s a much cheaper conversation than an ATO review years down the track.